Cultural meanings of economic discourse in the context of the 2020 pandemic

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of identifying new cultural meanings that have enriched the linguistic world-image under the influence of the 2020 pandemic. In the process of evolutional development of any society, new cultural meanings arise, which are permanently fixed in the language and carry a special cultural-historical and phsycoemotional load. The purpose of this study is to analyze the most frequently identified cultural-semantic components of the linguistic world-image during the 2020 pandemic. As a research material, the author considers economic discourse as a platform that allows to trace the main vectors of media discourse development in the period of difficult economic situation, due to the fact that the economic sector of life was most exposed to the negative impact of the pandemic and acts as a kind of litmus of the psychoemotional mood of society. As the main research method, the method of critical discourse analysis, developed by, N. Fairclough is used which allows to define the communicative functions of the language as a verbal sign system, and also qualitatively demonstrates the main trends that affect the formation of new cultural meanings in the language. The analysis of examples from English-language printed publications, as well as electronic resources displaying the activities of global economic organizations, allowed to identify the main vectors of the information space around which the media focuses, containing such terminological concepts as “coronavirus pandemic”, “Covid-19”, “economic crisis”, “recession”, “national lockdown”, “poverty rising”, “vaccination”. Based on the obtained data, conclusions are drawn about the fixation of new cultural meanings in the linguistic world-image, which carry a negative connotation and can be for the purpose nominated as “critical stress”, “virus-culprit”, “virus-destroyer”, “disease-crisis”, at the same time, the duality of the nature of the listed cultural and semantic elements is noted. Along with this, the fixation of the cultural meaning “vaccine-saviour” which has a positive connotation, is revealed in linguistic world-image.

Keywords

• linguistic world-image
• cultural meanings
• media discourse
• economic discourse
• method of critical discourse analysis
• persuasion
• duality
• pandemic
• covid-19